It's November; Time for Some Thanks!

When Derek graduated from college in 2008, he started working for a company called DeltaValve. They made valves for oil companies (that's really the extent of what I know, because I'm no engineer...). He tried to be positive, but it got really hard because he just wasn't getting the kind of work that even the lowest of engineers should have been getting. With over 70 people working for the company and only getting drafting jobs, he couldn't really impress the types of people he needed to.

A little over a year ago, he was asked to spend 6 weeks helping a sister company called TDC to work on a specific project. TDC had recruited several of DeltaValve's engineers for projects like this but it was known that it usually took longer than the time they had recruited them for. Derek knew this, but there wasn't much he could do. He went over to TDC and started working on this project.

About 4 weeks after starting at TDC, DeltaValve had it's 3rd set of layoffs in 5 months. And, this was a big one. Derek's boss at TDC called him into his office and said that if Derek had still been working at DeltaValve, he would have been laid off, but because Reuben (TDC boss) had seen Derek work for the last several weeks, he had talked to corporate and asked if he could hire him on at TDC, for good.

Without Derek having to do anything, he was fired and hired all in one day. We were pretty lucky.

Derek has liked working for TDC a lot more than DeltaValve. With only 8-10 people working there, he has had many more opportunities to prove himself and get the kind of work that he should have been getting from the start. It was hard work, and he actually had to do more work because there were fewer people, but he really loved it!

Yesterday, Derek was told by his boss that all of DeltaValve was moving to Houston, where corporate is located. He said that DeltaValve was doing 3 more rounds of layoffs, at the end of which, only 12 people would be asked if they wanted to go to Houston. 12, out of like 50. He said that the 12 who would be going would most likely be those that are high in rank, who had been working for the company as long as it had been in operation. I asked about TDC and what was going to happen to it, and Derek said that all was well, and his boss was projecting more hires, not fires in the next few years.

I cannot tell you how blessed I feel that Derek was asked to do a short-term project at TDC, exactly at the time that he was. He wouldn't have survived that 3rd lay-off a year ago, and even if he had, he never would have made it past now. He wouldn't have been asked to move with the company, and even if he had, I can't leave until my school year is over so we couldn't have done it anyway. He's happier at TDC, he gets more work, and his job is stable. I have a job, and as long as we stay in Utah, I have definite job security. My principal loves me and I also have several people at the district level who know and respect me, so I'm fine.

We both have jobs. We are so blessed.

UVU Volleyball

In August, I got an email from the coach of the UVU girls volleyball team asking if I wanted to have my students write letters to one of his players. I said I would love that!

In October, they sent us the profile of one of the volleyball players and I had my kids write letters to her. She wrote back, and I expected her to write one class letter, but she wrote one to every student that had written her. It was so nice! With her letters, the coach also sent us tickets to their game. 2 for each student. I told the kids and they got so excited.

Tonight was the game. Derek and I went and eight of my students came. It was so much fun. It was nice doing something with my class without having to worry about them. All of their parents were there, so it was their job to worry about them! The kids made posters for our volleyball player, who turned out to be the captain of the team, and they cheered to whole time! Finally, our "pen pal" saw us and waved. The kids loved it!

At the end of the game, the players all sat behind a table and the kids got to get all of their autographs. They gave them a team photo and each player autographed their picture. It took awhile for all our kids to get through the line, but I think it was worth it.

I loved seeing my kids in a different way tonight. And, I loved having Derek finally meet some of them. It was fun chatting with some of the parents and cheering for the team.

Oh, by the way, UVU won 3 games to 0!

TEN!

I've lost 10 pounds! Woohoo! It took 3 weeks to lose the first 5 pounds, and a whopping 2 months to lose the second 5 pounds. Oh well, at least it's off. I won't make my goal to lose 20 by Hawaii during Thanksgiving, but I really feel great! I feel like I look better than I did when I was 10 pounds lighter than this just because I'm more toned. I'm still going to try and lose 10 more pounds, but I'm just not sure when that will happen. I'm hoping to at least keep the 10 I've already lost off over the holidays. If that's all I can do, great, but if I can continue to lose during the holidays, even better. Anyway, that's my news! Go Me!

Halloween

Halloween is always a fun holiday. Especially in the profession I've chosen. Yesterday, I had two boys go home throwing up because they had already had too much candy (not from me, so I don't know how they got it...) and one girl with a migraine headache. I had another girl in tears because her wig had been ripped off and it was bobby pinned to her hair, so it pulled her hair. She wanted to call her mom to have her come fix her wig. I said no. Mean teacher, I know, but really?

I dressed up as Mulan. Well, to be honest, it was really a geisha costume, but I wore a sign on my back with Mulan written on it, because I didn't want any controversies spreading around the school. Everyone loved it!

Tonight, we went down to Doug and Heather's because they were going to go to their ward's Trunk-or-Treat. Emily was a witch, just like last year, and Colby was a pirate. Brady dressed up as the cutest Batman I've ever seen. Even Derek dressed up! Before going down there, we decided to go to Wal*Mart to see if they had any costumes left. They had a lot, but they were all XX-Large! We almost didn't buy one, and then Derek saw a Ninja costume. It was they same size, but we bought it hoping it would work out. Somehow, I'm not sure how, but it did work! He was able to tie a sash around his waist that made the tunic seem a lot smaller. It worked out! A ninja and a geisha. Perfect couple...:)

The best part of Halloween was definitely at the end of the Trunk-or-Treat. The whole time, the sky was black with thick clouds, it had already rained before, and we were watching as the clouds moved right over head. It wasn't raining so we just kept going. All of a sudden, it started pouring. And I mean POURING!!! Everyone started running for their cars. The water was everywhere, you couldn't see a thing and it was coming down hard! Right as we got to Doug and Heather's car, it started hailing. I had Emily by the hand and she started screaming because it hurt so I had to cover her with my body while Heather searched for the car keys. Kids were screaming and crying everywhere. And poor little Colby was definitely one of the loudest. We got them all into the car and everyone was crying. It was hard not to laugh after we had gotten everyone in. Colby, amidst streams of tears, yelled out, "I never want to go Trick-or-Treating AGAIN!!!" I was crying I was laughing so hard. Here we were, trying to make a great Halloween night for these kids, and they have been completely traumatized! For the rest of the night, Colby kept telling everyone that he hated Halloween and never wanted to go again! So funny! Once, I told him that I should get all of his candy since he hated Halloween so much. He didn't think that was that funny!

Overall, one of the best Halloween's I have had. It was fun dressing up, and it was hilarious with Doug and Heather's kids.

On Our Way

2:15 can't come fast enough. Why? Oh, I just get to leave school then and take a flight to my home state, good ol' California!

Derek's best friend Ryan, is getting married in Oakland this weekend and Derek is a groomsmen so we get to be there for all the major festivities! I'm very excited. Not necessarily because I love weddings (sometimes they can be rather boring) but because I get to have a 3-day weekend in California! That's not all! Megan and Reed now live in that area, so whenever there's some down time (which there always is in a wedding), we get to spend time with them! Yay!

So, this weekend will be filled with lots of dresses, pictures and fun times. I couldn't ask for more!

"You are the best teacher ever!"

I will never get tired of those words. Especially when they are spoken by a 10 year-old!

What A Week!

Last week was one of the longest in my life.

This week FLEW by.

Parent Teacher Conferences were on Wednesday and Thursday night. Overall, it went well. I only had a couple parents that weren't too thrilled about a couple things I was doing:

One dad was flabbergasted that his son had a multiplication chart on his desk so when he took his timed tests, "he has all the answers?" I tried to explain to him that it's good to understand how to use certain tools, like calculators, to help with certain things. I assured him that our timings would would have less and less time so his son wouldn't be able to use the multiplication as a crutch if he was going to pass them off in less time. That seemed to quiet him, but at first he seemed quite appalled!

Another mother left a facebook status after she talked with me that my principal Cami told me about this morning. She was just saying how upset she was about how her son was getting bullied at school and she was going in to talk to his teacher (me) about it. Apparently, I handled it just fine because according to another facebook status, she said that things had been taken care of. My principal was upset that she was posting about something that should probably be a private matter to discuss, but she was grateful to me for handling it so well.

Other than that, it went well. Besides the fact that I currently have NO voice.

I knew that would happen, so brilliantly, I decided to make today a Read-a-thon day! No teaching for me, the kids are still learning (they read the whole day and are using math to add and subtract the number of pages they read, and at the end of the day, we graph the results as a class to find the winner), and I have time to rest my voice, get caught up on things I need to get done and relax for once this week! Like I said, BRILLIANT!!!

Well, that's how my week has gone. Luckily it's over after today and I'll have a much needed weekend! And, I have next week to look forward to. Monday--field trip. Tuesday--substitute so I can go to a district meeting. Wednesday--last day of the week and the only day I have to teach. Thursday and Friday--UEA/Fall Break! Sweet!